KCR’S CHOICE SHOWS TRS IS FOR YOUNG LEADERS

The nomination of Gellu Srinivas Yadav as the TRS candidate for the Huzurabad bypoll on Wednesday indicates TRS president and Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao's new strategy of giving more prominence to youth in the party in recent times.

This new trend is being seen in the TRS since the Nagarjunasagar Assembly bypoll held in April this year. The party chief gave ticket to 37year-old Nomula Bhagat to contest Nagarjunasagar bypoll.

He recently nominated

36-year-old Padi Kaushik Reddy as MLC under the Governor's quota within 10 days of joining the TRS from the Congress. Now, 38year-old Yadav got Huzurabad bypoll ticket. On all these occasions, Rao ignored dozens of senior party leaders who worked as ministers, MLAs, MLCs, MPs and who were in the race for party tickets and favoured young leaders in 30s age group.

TRS sources feel there is a marked change in the “political strategies” of Rao after the party suffered setbacks in the Dubbak Assembly bypoll and the GHMC elections in 2020-end. In Dubbak bypoll, Rao gave ticket to 51-yearold Solipeta Sujatha, the wife of deceased sitting MLA Solipeta Ramalinga Reddy against the wishes of local party cadre who wanted the party to field his 32-year-old son S. Sathish Reddy. The party lost the seat to BJP by a slender margin. In Nagarjunasagar, the party chief gave ticket to Nomula Bhagat, the son of deceased sitting MLA Nomula Narasimhaiah. Though there was pressure on him to give ticket to the party's senior local leaders like M.C. Koti Reddy, K. Guravaiah Yadav, P. Srinivas Yadav,

Rao chose Bhagat who defeated Congress heavyweight K. Jana Reddy with a huge margin. In the case of Kaushik Reddy, Rao took him into the TRS from the Congress as he secured 60,000 votes against the then TRS candidate Etala Rajendar in 2018 Assembly polls.